Apple Tarts and Eyeballs

Gomez had always had a close relationship with his mother. He remembered being a small child, maybe five years old or so, when she had first made his favorite treat.

He came into the kitchen after school and sat at the table with his little brother Fester and found her at the counter wearing her apron that was patterned with spiders (some real and some sewn in) and her long thick hair in a frizzy halo around her head.

"I've got a special treat for you boys," she said excitedly. Mama had always gotten excited about the littlest things.

She places a plate of apple tarts topped with blood red icing on top, not that young Gomez and Fester would have cared too much if it was real blood. Gomez took a bite and the inside was squishy, squishier than he expected. He looked down and eyeballs oozing from the center.

Mama had cackled at the looks on the boys faces. "I call it apple tarts and eyeballs."

Gomez took another bite. It was delicious!

He'd always been closer to his mother than his father. His father had always seemed cold and distant as he was growing up. They'd had good times of course when he was growing up, but Mama was the opposite. She had always been warm and loving and often times not all there it seemed. She was always off in her own world mixing her potions and predicting the stars. Some of the neighbors thought she was crazy, Gomez thought she was perfect.

Whenever he got into arguments win his father, he'd go up to the attic or the creaky roof where Mama would more than likely be.

One evening he'd found her in the attic looking wistfully out the window.

"What's wrong my boy?" She asked when she saw him looking angry even though she already suspected before he said anything.

"My father is impossible, I can't take it anymore!"

She put her hands on his shoulders. "Don't say that, your father loves you."

He snorted. "Yeah sure." He didn't want her to know that deep down he knew she was right.

"Come look at the stars with me," she said leading him to the window. "We're in Aries right now, this is a time of great change and self discovery."

"Mama how can the stars tell you all of that?"

"Don't you know the stars predict the world? The universe can't function without the stars. They love us. The look over us. If it weren't for the stars and the moon the universe would fall apart. "

"He wasn't sure if the universe would fall apart without the stars but whenever he needed to think or some guidance it did help to take a look at the stars.

He'd studied abroad at Cambridge during college and where he had gotten his law degree. He loved staying in Europe and being an adult and having his own adventures. But admittedly there were things he missed at home. When he came home to visit during the summer, there was one thing in particular.

Coming through the front door there was a warm smell of something baking in the kitchen. There was his mother, now so much shorter than her fully grown son, her chestnut brown hair now gray but just as wild as ever.

"Gomez, I'm so glad you're home. I made your favorite," she said.

He took one of the apple tarts and eyeballs of the plate and took a bite. It tasted like home.

The summer he had come home from school for good was one that he considers the greatest of his life. He had met a beautiful girl at the graveyard and he had been seeing her for quite some time. He was ready to bring her home to meet his mother, he just knew she would love her.

"So mama…" he said one afternoon while she mixed up some of her potions.

"I think you should get married Gomez,' she said.

"Well…"

"There's this girl I want you to meet. Her name is Ophelia. She comes from a good family, very beautiful and smart too. I think you should marry her."

Gomez was shocked. "Mama, I don't even know this girl," he said.

"You'll like her when you meet her, or you'll grow to like her. It's Addams family custom to marry into well off families. Your father and I did it."

And look how that turned out," he thought. "Mama I'm already in love."

"With her?"

"No, with another girl."

"You have to meet her dear, I already told her family you'd go through with it."

"Mother!" He exclaimed.

"Just come to her house for dinner with me tomorrow. I promise you'll like her."

He sighed. "Fine I'll meet her, but that's it."

Of course he didn't end up marrying Ophelia. Mama had grown fond of Morticia very quickly and within minutes the two were best friends. She had even designed Morticia's wedding dress herself.

His mother seemed to get crazier over the years. Maybe it was delirium, from missing their father who had died the year before Gomez finished at Cambridge. Maybe the fumes she was surrounded by mixing potions all day we're getting to her. Or maybe it was all an act she put on because she had always been of the mindset to not giving a flying crap what anyone thought of her. No matter what she was always there for Gomez and Morticia and supported them through anything.

Gomez came into the kitchen one afternoon feeling tired. Morticia was upstairs in bed taking a nap. The two had been chronically sleep deprived ever since Pugsley was born and it was really getting to them.

"How's our little Addams?" Mama asked from where she was whipping up her latest dish.

"Napping, finally," he replied as he sat down at the table. "I'm so tired mama, I didn't think I'd ever be this tired in my life."

"It's worth it though isn't it to have a little one of your own?"

Gomez couldn't help the smile that touched his face. Despite his exhaustion he had never been so happy. "It is definitely worth it."

She placed something on the table in front of him. "This might help."

He picked one up and took a bite.

No matter how old he got mama's apple tarts and eyeballs never failed to cheer him up.